Posted on 06/28/2017 11:20:43 AM PDT by Sopater
My "Rewriting American History" column of a fortnight ago, about the dismantling of Confederate monuments, generated considerable mail. Some argued there should not be statues honoring traitors such as Robert E. Lee, Stonewall Jackson and Jefferson Davis, who fought against the Union. Victors of wars get to write the history, and the history they write often does not reflect the facts. Let's look at some of the facts and ask: Did the South have a right to secede from the Union? If it did, we can't label Confederate generals as traitors.
Article 1 of the Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the war between the Colonies and Great Britain, held "New Hampshire, Massachusetts Bay, Rhode Island and Providence Plantations, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia, to be free sovereign and Independent States." Representatives of these states came together in Philadelphia in 1787 to write a constitution and form a union.
During the ratification debates, Virginia's delegates said, "The powers granted under the Constitution being derived from the people of the United States may be resumed by them whensoever the same shall be perverted to their injury or oppression." The ratification documents of New York and Rhode Island expressed similar sentiments.
At the Constitutional Convention, a proposal was made to allow the federal government to suppress a seceding state. James Madison, the "Father of the Constitution," rejected it. The minutes from the debate paraphrased his opinion: "A union of the states containing such an ingredient (would) provide for its own destruction. The use of force against a state would look more like a declaration of war than an infliction of punishment and would probably be considered by the party attacked as a dissolution of all previous compacts by which it might be bound."
America's first secessionist movement started in New England after the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Many were infuriated by what they saw as an unconstitutional act by President Thomas Jefferson. The movement was led by Timothy Pickering of Massachusetts, George Washington's secretary of war and secretary of state. He later became a congressman and senator. "The principles of our Revolution point to the remedy — a separation," Pickering wrote to George Cabot in 1803, for "the people of the East cannot reconcile their habits, views, and interests with those of the South and West." His Senate colleague James Hillhouse of Connecticut agreed, saying, "The Eastern states must and will dissolve the union and form a separate government." This call for secession was shared by other prominent Americans, such as John Quincy Adams, Elbridge Gerry, Fisher Ames, Josiah Quincy III and Joseph Story. The call failed to garner support at the 1814-15 Hartford Convention.
The U.S. Constitution would have never been ratified — and a union never created — if the people of those 13 "free sovereign and Independent States" did not believe that they had the right to secede. Even on the eve of the War of 1861, unionist politicians saw secession as a right that states had. Rep. Jacob M. Kunkel of Maryland said, "Any attempt to preserve the union between the states of this Confederacy by force would be impractical and destructive of republican liberty." The Northern Democratic and Republican parties favored allowing the South to secede in peace.
Northern newspapers editorialized in favor of the South's right to secede. New-York Tribune (Feb. 5, 1860): "If tyranny and despotism justified the Revolution of 1776, then we do not see why it would not justify the secession of Five Millions of Southrons from the Federal Union in 1861." The Detroit Free Press (Feb. 19, 1861): "An attempt to subjugate the seceded States, even if successful, could produce nothing but evil — evil unmitigated in character and appalling in extent." The New-York Times (March 21, 1861): "There is a growing sentiment throughout the North in favor of letting the Gulf States go."
Confederate generals were fighting for independence from the Union just as George Washington and other generals fought for independence from Great Britain. Those who'd label Gen. Robert E. Lee as a traitor might also label George Washington as a traitor. I'm sure Great Britain's King George III would have agreed.
And I'll, respectfully, point out that you are in error. That Douglas Southall Freeman detailed how Lee owned slaves much of his adult life, before his father-in-laws death. That Lee, in fact, freed the last of the slaves from his father-in-law's estate in December 1862 and not years before the war.
I’ll also point out that the Federal government offered him command of their army, which he refused because he could not take up arms against his family, friends and neighbors.
Which has what to do with his views towards the races?
He was an honorable man.
In many ways yes he was. But he was also a man of the times and not perfect in any way, shape, or form.
Regarding Lincoln, there are more than a few cites and quotes that highlight the error of your statement. He believed black people to be inferior.
And as I pointed out, if Lincoln is open for condemnation for those opinions then aren't the Southern leaders open for condemnation as well since their views towards blacks were even worse?
He said he’d keep slavery if it meant keeping the Union together.
He also said he'd free them all if that meant keeping the Union together.
The Emancipation Proclamation was a military document, intended to foment insurrection in the “rebel” states of the Confederacy...
That claim is just plain idiotic.
...it did not free any slaves outside of it in Union states.
Constitutionally he could not do that.
Is this the behavior of an opponent of slavery? No, it is not.
If you would take the time to read Lincoln's speeches and writings then you would realize that he was, in fact, a strong opponent of slavery his entire life. How many of your Southern leaders really opposed it themselves?
Loser's whining.
Are you finally prepared to admit that? After all this time and innumerable posts pointing that out to you? We should write this date down.
Oh well what the heck, I can probably come up with dozens of Southern leaders of today whose views towards blacks are heads and shoulders about those of Lincoln. But let's keep the selection to the period of the Southern rebellion, shall we?
The war was not begun over slavery as both sides had vested interests and there were slaveholders as well as slaves on both sides, that is the point.
Your statement that claiming the Emancipation Proclamation was a military document intended to foment insurrection in the seceded states of the Confederacy is idiotic, is in and of itself idiotic. Read, woman (or at least you come across that way to me, certainly don’t mean to assume your gender or anything).
The Southern leaders of the time would disagree with you.
"The South had always been solid for slavery and when the quarrel about it resulted in a conflict of arms, those who had approved the policy of disunion took the pro-slavery side. It was perfectly logical to fight for slavery, if it was right to own slaves." [John S. Mosby, Mosby's Memoirs, p. 20]
In the momentous step which our State has taken of dissolving its connection with the government of which we so long formed a part, it is but just that we should declare the prominent reasons which have induced our course.
Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery, the greatest material interest of the world. --Mississppi Declaration of the Causes of Secession
What was the reason that induced Georgia to take the step of secession? This reason may be summed up in one single proposition. It was a conviction, a deep conviction on the part of Georgia, that a separation from the North-was the only thing that could prevent the abolition of her slavery. -- Speech of Henry Benning to the Virginia Convention
"History affords no example of a people who changed their government for more just or substantial reasons. Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery, and of the free institutions of the founders of the Federal Union, bequeathed to their posterity." -- Address of George Williamson, Commissioner from Louisiana to the Texas Secession Convention
"Our people have come to this on the question of slavery. I am willing, in that address to rest it upon that question. I think it is the great central point from which we are now proceeding, and I am not willing to divert the public attention from it." - Lawrence Keitt
Your statement that claiming the Emancipation Proclamation was a military document intended to foment insurrection in the seceded states of the Confederacy is idiotic, is in and of itself idiotic.
If you read the Emancipation Proclamation you will see is explicitly condemned slave uprisings, and the fact that there were none relating to the proclamation is further evidence that no such uprisings were part of the plan.
Read, woman (or at least you come across that way to me, certainly don’t mean to assume your gender or anything).
Read my profile and you would see that gender is one of the few things you have been right about.
With the possible exception of Baltimore, there was no insurrection or rebellion in the states operating under Lincoln’s authority.
The war began due to the failure of the Republicans to uphold their duty to limit Lincolns actions. They allowed despotic behavior to destroy the peace.
The Civil War was not an insurrection at all. It was a separatist factional war with clear lines between the two sides. There were no partisans on either side actively warring against either government. For example Copperheads never took up arms but they were active politically and strongly anti war.
No other President abused the Constitutional limits of the office as did Lincoln.
No other Congress failed its charge to uphold the Constitution as did the men there in 1861.
Your third sentence clearly contradicts the first two.
Parts of Illinois and Indiana were, shall we say, restive at various points during the rebellion. And there were anti-draft riots in New York and Wisconsin. Now whether that was due to "despotic behavior" on the part of Lincoln or just because there wasn't a lot of support for them to begin with is open for debate. And uprisings in the North never reached the level that they did in the South where in spite of Richmond's heavy hand whole counties were in open defiance of the Confederate government and where Davis had to threaten to call out the troops to put down the Bread Riots in March and April of 1863.
I would point out that every court decision is ex-post facto. Courts don't rule on something that hasn't happened yet. And every action was done after the South had begun hostilities, not simply when they had announced secession.
No other President abused the Constitutional limits of the office as did Lincoln.
So you say. But court decisions don't seem to support your claim.
No other Congress failed its charge to uphold the Constitution as did the men there in 1861.
Again, matter of opinion.
Rioting is not usually considered an organized partisan resistance war effort.
I guess that would depend on where it is and how widespread it becomes.
There was major political upheaval and rioting in the North but no partisan guerilla warfare against FedGov.
To characterize the US Civil War as a partisan guerilla war is preposterous. Stupid.
Of course there was. It wasn’t expansive but it was there.
The civil war should be remembered as the most embarrassing chapter in American history, where a collection of planter oligarchs unhappy with the results of a fair and democratic election, attempted through overt acts of treason to undermine our democracy and in the process unleashed the most destructive war in the United States’ history, all in an attempt to establish a new Republic founded solely to preserve and protect an institution that kept millions of Americans in chains.
“...and that no state could take any action to end the practice. That is why the “State Rights” argument is pure Male Bovine Scat.”
Could you provide the wording of the issue you cite?
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